Cash drawers and method for operating same



Jan. 17, G* RAKICH 3,298,765

CASH DRAWERS AND METHOD FOR OPERATING SAME Filed Aug.` 18, 1965 2 Sheets-Sheet l 3 \o u, Y |a\ @u "4 v 4+ a d 2, :Il @#38 2Q /3e I di 46) 3+) 4 l Bzw f V56 384- /2O' ou P 6a? /GO l L- V /l jj uw \Q-w m mw [I8 I7/ V ze [a4 l fso 3 INVENTOR. j( GEORGE HAK/CH www@ M ATTORNEY G. RAKlcH Jam. 17, 1967 l CASH DRAWERS ND METHOD FOR OPERATING SAME Filed Aug. 1a, 1965 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 STATlON 3 STATION 2 STATI oN i IN VEN TOR.

RAKICH ATTORNEY United States Patent O Filed Aug. 18, 1965, Ser. No. 480,636 Claims. (Cl. S12-223) This invention relates .generally to cash drawers and more particularly to means and method for operating a plurality of cash drawers.

With the expanding suburban population in recent years, money depositories such as banks and savings and loan associations are providing branch oices to meet the business and banking demands of the increasing suburban population.

In present banking practice, the main bank building is maintained in the most populous section of the city. Such a building, being permanently located and constituting the main and centralized activity of its business, is consequently durably constructed and designed for the protective custody of money. Such design and construction follows planning which takes into consideration every aspect of safe guarding of money deposited and kept therein. `The physical structure, besides being inherently impregnable, is further protected by guarding procedures involving bank guards and the like.

These activities, together with the continuous and multitudenous activity of the banking customers during the day, are sufficient to prevent robberies of such institutions to all but seldom, uncommon and rare occurrences. The branch ofiiees of theseinstitutions, however, having been Aprovided following a recently and rapidly expanding population, of which the extent and direction of future business activity is usually indeterminable at the time a branch oice is provided, and therefore, is not designed or constructed with such permanency and solidity to provide the security for the money deposited and kept therein as provided at the main oflice. In many instances, such branch offices are installed in conventional office or business buildings not having been designed for depositories of or less committed in a so called unprofessional manner and on a hurried basis where the money taken was what was patently present to view and quickly and easily available. l

Although applicable to the main oiiices of banking instit-utions, and to non-banking businesses, this invention is directed mainly to branch offices of banking institutions which are particularly susceptible to such robberies and has as its principal object the provision of cash drawers constructed and arranged to minimize the loss as a consequence of such robberies.

Another object of this invention is the provision of a means and method for converting conventional cash drawers to the practice of this invention.

Still another object of this invention is to provide cash drawers in accordance with the principles of this invention which are simple to operate and economical to construct.

With these and other objects in view as will appear hereinafter, my invention consists of certain novel features of construction, combination and arrangement of parts and portions as will be hereinafter described in de- 3,298,765 Patented Jan. 17, 1967 tail and particularly set forth in the appended claims, reference being had to the accompanying drawings and to the characters of reference thereon forming a part of this application, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a front elevation of the money depository station of my invention showing the exterior arrangement of the drawers therein;

FIGURE 2 is a plan elevation of a station sectioned along line 2 2 of FIGURE 1 showing the drawer support bars and the pulley device;

`FIGURE 3 is a fragmentary sectional view of the money depository station of my invention taken traversely through the counter along line 3-3 of FIG- URE 1;

FIGURE 4 is a schematic drawing showing a plurality of drawer assemblies, each thereof representing a teller station, co-operatively connected by an electric control circuit;

FIGURE 5 is a perspective view of the drawer support means and the connecting pulley device showing the drawers in phantom lines; and

FIGURE 6 is a view similar to FIGURE 5 but showing a modified connecting arrangement of the pulley device to the drawer support means and the drawers.

Referring now to the drawings in detail, wherein for the purpose of illustration, there is disclosed a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the numerals 10 and 12 designate .generally the drawer assembly and the electric control circuit, respectively, of this invention. Cash drawer assembly 10 comprises a generally rectangularly shaped housing 14, of which the exterior plan 16 thereof may and usually does serve as a customer counter. The interior cavity 18 of housing 14 is provided with drawer tracks comprising vertically spaced, parallel bars 20, 20 and 22, 22 which support in stack relation for `slidable movement thereon, drawers 24 and 26. Rectangular openings 28 and 30 are provided in side 32 of housing 14 through which drawers 24 and 26, respectively, are moved in and out of housing 14. Drawers 24 and 26 are slidably supported on bars 20, 20' and 22, 22', respectively, in pig-a-back fashion. Drawers 24 and 26 each comprise a rectangularly shaped container, the interior of which is suitably compartmented to segregate money and coins of different denominations. Front end 34 of the lower drawer 26 is provided with a decorative facia 36 to blend with and, as far as practicable, visually indistinguishable from the counter facia 38 of housing 14. To assist the camouflage of facia 36 of lower drawer 26, I prefer to provide the front end 40 of upper drawer 24 with a decorative facia 42 which does not blend but clashes or contrasts with and is visually distinguishable from the counter facia 3'8. -Obtrusive handle means 44 is provided for upper drawer 24 and inobtrusive linger grasp means 46 is provided for lower drawer 26 to manually open the respective drawers for normal usage.

Electric motor means 48 is mounted on end wall 5) of housing 14 which is spaced rearwardly of the rear ends 52 and 54 of drawers 24 and 26, respectively, when the drawers are closed, that is when the drawers are entirely contained in the housing. Motor 48 is provided with belt drive means 56 comprising pulleys 58, 58', shafted to motorrmeans 48 and which are drivingly aligned with freely rotating pulley 60, 60' which are conveniently mounted on the side wall of housing 14 or preferably as I have shown on shaft means supported on bracket 62 connected to drawer support bars 20y and 22 so as to occupy a position laterally adjacent drawers 24 and 26 forwardly spaced from rear ends 52 and 54 of drawers 24 and 26, respectively. Pulleys 58, 58 yand 60, 60 are drivingly connected by means such as Ian endless belt 64. Upstanding dogs 70 and 72 are iixed to belt 64 so as to assume diagonally opposite positions relative to one another as belt 64 travels about pulleys 58, 58 a-nd 60, 60. The lineally tracking, oppositely moving dogs 70 and 72 provide the motive force for moving drawers 24 and 26 to open and close, respectively, when control ci-r- `cuit 12 is activated, by respective abutting engagement of dogs 70 and 72 with laterally extending lug 74 connecting the rear end 52 of drawer 24 and laterally extending lug 76 connecting the rear end 54 of drawer 26.

Though I have described and illustrated in the drawings drive means for drawers 24 and 26 as being comprised of pulleys 58, 58' and 60, 60 and belt 64 and being mounted laterally adjacent one side of drawers 34 and 36 so that dogs 70 and 72 may respectively engage laterally extending lugs 74 and 76 connecting one side of the rear ends of drawers 24 and 26, respectively; it is understood that the pulley-belt assembly comprising the drive means may be duplicated on the other side of the drawers so that both drives may straddle a set of drawers 24 and 26 so that the propelling force of the dog-lug engagement may be equalized to prevent a resultant binding force between the drawers and the supporting guideway bars Ztl, Ztl and 22, 22. Another arrangement for the pulley-belt assembly relative to the drawers which comes to mind to obtain compactness of assembly is to centrally locate the belt 64 longitudinally between drawers 24 and 26 so that the plane of the pulleys lies horizontally between drawers 24 and 26 as perspectively shown in FIGURE 6. With this arrangement, dog means 70 engages the heel center of the rear end 52 of drawer 24 from the exterior of the drawer, and dog means 72 engages the top center of rear end 54 of drawer 26 from the interior of the drawer.

With particular reference to FIGURE 1, station 1, the control circuit 12 of my invention comprises the circuit of parallel lines S0, line 82 and motor 48. Parallel lines 80 includes lone or more foot actuated, normally open switch 84 which completes or interrupts the circuit to motor 48. A circuit for reverse drive is provided by Ilines 86 and 32. Line 86 includes normally open reset switch 88 which is manually operated to complete or interrupt the reverse circuit of motor 48. Stations 2 and 3 of FIGURE 1 illustrate an arrangement of multiple cash drawers as would normally be the case in a bank. Motor 48 f-or each set of cash dr-awers 24 and 26 at each station and is electrically connected in parallel to ylines 80 and 82, so that upon the closing of any of foot switches 84 the motors 48 at each station will operate cash drawers 24 and 26 to open and close, respectively, and to assume their proper position for the contingency that this invention is intended.

The use and method of operation of this invention are as follows: Drawer 24 is used to contain bills of small denomination in limited quantity. Drawer 24, as stated above is preferably conspicuous in appearance and distinguishable from the design of counter facia 32 as a drawer, in contrast to drawer 26 which is inconspicuous in appearance and as far as practicable, indistinguishable from the design of counter facia 32. Conspicuous drawer 24 is preferably positioned to operate above inconspicuous drawer 26 which contains bills of large denomination as well as bills of small denomination but in large quantities. The bank tellers may manually operate drawers 24 and 26 at each station during the course of normal business. In the event a robbery is announced to one of the tellers, the teller upon whom the robbery is being committed or a-ny of the other tellers or bank personnel aware of the robbery may inconspicuously operate any of foot switches 84 most easily accessible to close the circuit of lines 80 and 82 to operate motor 48 and set in motion pulley drive 56 for the drawers 24 and 26 at all stations in the bank. Dog means 70 on moving belts 64 will engage the laterally extending lugs 74 of any closed drawers 24, and dog means 72 on moving belt 64 will engage the laterally extending lugs 76 of any open drawers 26 and drive the respective drawers open and closed so that cash drawer 24 -containing a Ilimited quantity of small denomination bills is exposed to view and cash drawer 26 containing large quantities of bills and especially bills of large denomination is closed and hidden from view. This operation has the added phycological advantage of giving the appearance to the person committing the robbery of cooperation and during the stress and tension of the moment, the money taken will be only that exposed to view which was apparently co-operatively presented by the tellers leaving the bulk of the money, including the bills of large denomination in the bank. After the robber had lied, the cash drawers may be placed in normally operative position by closing reset switches 88 for each station causing motors 48 to reverse its operation to disengage dog means 72 from lug 76 of drawer 26 and to be retracted therefrom to allow the manual withdrawel of drawer 26. This reverse movement of belt 64 simultaneously withdraws dog means 70 from lug 74 of drawer 24 allowing drawer 24 to be manually pushed into housing 14 as required during normal operation of the drawers.

It is apparent that this invention provides a simple, economical to maufacture and simple to operate cash drawer structure and arrangement whereby during normal banking operations any set of drawers at any teller station are moved in and out at will as required and which is in no wise different from the operation of the prior practice during the period of normalcy. However, upon the occurence of the emergency that this invention is directed to, the structure of the drawers, the arrangement thereof and the control therefor may be put into operation regardless of the immediate prior positions of any of the drawers 24 and 26 and automatically rearrange the positions of all the drawers 24 and 26 to work to the apparent advantage of the robber and to the real advantage of the bank depository which results in enhancing the safety of the bank personnel by the appearance of co-operation and at the same time minimizing the loss to the victim of the robbery.

While particular embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made without departing from this invention in its broader aspects, and, therefore, the air in the appended claims is to cover all such changes and modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of this invention.

I claim:

1. A money depository station comprising:

a counter housing having a front facia wall and a rear wall, said facia wall provided with an opening therein;

a pair `of drawers supported in said counter housing vertically aligned in stack relation, each of said drawers being manually shiftable horizontally in and out of said housing through said opening in said front f acia wall, independently of each other;

said drawers having a front facia end and a rear end;

a pulley device supported in said counter housing, said pulley device comprising spaced pulleys, and belt means encircling said pulleys for translating unidirecitonal rotary motion of said pulleys to simultaneous, oppositely directed, lineal motion, and dog means connecting said belt means, one of said dog means extending from said belt means to engage said rear end of one of said drawers to move said one drawer `out of said housing when said drawer is contained in said housing, and another of said dog means extending from said belt means to engage the rear end of the other of said drawers to simultaneously move said lother drawer into said housing when said other drawer is Iout of said housing;

an electric motor in said housing drivingly connecting said pulley device; and

a switch means for operating said electric motor.

2. A money depository station comprising:

a counter housing having a front facia wall and a rear wall, said facia wall having a design thereon and on opening therein, and said housing having vertically spaced and horizontally parallel track means;

a pair of drawers supported in said counter housing vertically aligned in stack relation, each of said drawers being horizontally manually shiftable on support means in and out of said housing through said opening in said front facia Wall, independently of each other;

one of said drawers having a front facia end and a rear end, said front facia end having a design visually contrasting with said design of said front facia wall of said counter housing;

the other of said drawers having a front facia end and a laterally extending rear end portion, said front facia end having a design visually indistinguishable from said design of said front facia wall of said counter housing;

a pulley device supported from said tracks in said counter housing, said pulley device` comprising spaced pulleys and belt means encircling said pulleys for translating uni-directional rotary motion of said pulleys to simultaneous, oppositely directed, lineal motion, and dog means connecting said belt means, one of said dog means laterally extending from said belt means to engage said rear end of said one of said drawers to move said one drawer out of said housing when said drawer Iis contain-ed in said housing, and another of -said dog means laterally extending from said belt means to engage the laterally extending rear end portion of said other drawer to simultaneously move said other drawer into said housing when said other drawer is out of said housing;

an electric motor in said housing for driving one of said pulleys of said pulley device; and switch means for operating said electric motor.

. A money depository station comprising:

a counter housing provided with a front wall and a rear wall, said front wall having a design thereon and having a pair of vertically aligned, spaced, rectangular openings therein;

a pair of vertically spaced, horizontally parallel track means in said counter housing;

a pair of drawers supported on said track means in said counter housing vertically aligned in stack relation, each of said drawers being manually shiftable, horizontally in and out of said housing through said openings in said front wall, independently of each other;

one of said drawers having a front end and a rear end, said front end having a design visually contrasting with said design of said front wall of said counter housing;

the other of said drawers having a front end, a rear end, and a lug connecting said rear end and laterally extending therefrom, said front end having a design substantially visually indistinguishable from said design of said front wall of said counter housing;

a pulley device in said counter housing, said pulley device comprising, a bracket means connecting said pair of track means, a pulley rotatably supported on said bracket means, laterally adjacent said pair of drawers, a motor means supported in said counter housing rearwardly of said rear end of said drawers, a second pulley yconnected to said motor means, belt means encircling said pulleys for translating uni-directional rotary motion of said pulleys to simultaneous, oppositely directed, lineal motion to portions of said belt means, and dog means connecting said belt means for simultaneous, oppositely directed, lineal travel with said belt means, one of said dog means extending from said belt means to releasably 6, engage said rear end of said one of said drawers to move said one drawer out of said housing when said drawer is contained in said housing, said dog means being out of engagement with said rear end of said drawer when said drawer is not contained in said housing, and another of said dog means extending from said belt means to releasably engage said laterally extending lug of said other drawer to move said other drawer into said housing when said other drawer is out of said housing, said another of said dog means being out of engagement with said lug when said other drawer is contained inside said housing;

switch means for operating said motor means in one direction; and

a second switch means for operating said motor means in the opposite direction.

4. A money depository station comprising:

a counter housing provided with a front wall and a rear wall, said front wall having a design thereon and having a pair of vertically aligned, spaced openings therein;

a pair of vertically aligned, horizontally parallel track means in said counter housing;

a pair of drawers supported on said track means in said counter housing, each of said drawers being vertically aligned in stack relation, each of said drawers being manually shiftable, horizontally in and out of said housing through said openings in said front wall, independently of each other;

one of said drawers having a front end and a rear end, said front end having a design visually contrasting with said design of said front wall of said Icounter housing;

the other of said drawers having a front end and a rear end, said front end having a design visually indistinguishable from said design of said front wall of said counter housing;

a pulley device in said counter housing, said pulley device comprising, a bracket means connecting one of said pair of track means, a pulley rotatably on said bracket means between said pair of drawers forward of said rear end of said drawers, an electric motor means supported rearwardly of said rear end of said drawers, a second pulley drivingly connected to said electric motor means, belt means encircling said pulleys for translating uni-directional rotary motion of said pulleys to simultaneous, oppositely directed, lineal motion for portions of said belt means, and dog means connecting said belt means for simultaneous, oppositely directed, lineal travel with said belt portions, one of said dog means connecting said belt means extending from said belt` means to releasably engage said rear end of said one drawer to move said one drawer out of said housing when said one drawer is contained in said housing, and another of said dog means connecting said belt means extending from said belt means to releasably engage said rear end of said other drawer to move said other drawer into said housing when said other drawer is out of said housing;

switch means for operating said electric motor means in one direction; and a second switch means for operating said electric motor means in the opposite direction.

5. A money depository station comprising:

a counter housing provided with a front wall and a rear wall, a facia design on said front wall, and said front wall having a plurality of pairs of laterally aligned, spaced openings therein;

a plurality of pairs of vertically spaced, horizontally parallel track means in said counter housing, each one of said plurality of track means providing a support means in said counter housing at one of said plurality of pairs of openings;

a plurality of pairs of drawers slidingly supported on said track means in said counter housing, each of said pair of drawers being vertically aligned in Stack relation, ea-ch of said drawers of each pair of drawers being manually shiftable horizontally in and out of said housing through said openings in said front wall, independently of each other;

one of said drawers of each pair of drawers having a front end and a rear end, said front end having a facia design visually contrasting with said facia design on said front wall of said counter housing;

the other of said drawers of each pair of drawers having a front end, a rear end, and said front end having a facia design substantially visually indistinguishable from said facia design of said front wall of said counter housing;

a plurality of pulley devices in said counter housing each of said pulley devices connecting said track means and being adjacently associative with a pair of drawers of said plurality of pairs of drawers, each of said pulley devices comprising, a bracket means connecting said track means forward of said rear end of said drawers, a pulley rotatably supported -on said bracket means between a pair of each of said plurality of pairs of drawers, an electric motor means supported in said counter housing rearwardly of said rear end of said drawers, a second pulley drivingly connected to said electric motor means, belt means encircling said pulleys of each of said pulley devices for translating unidirectional rotary 3() motion of said pulleys to simultatneous, oppositely directed, lineal motion for portions of said belt means, and dog means connecting ea-ch of said belt means for simultaneous, oppositely directed, lineal travel with said belt means, one of said dog means connecting each of said belt means extending from each of said belt means to releasably engage said rear ends of said one of said pair of drawers vadjacently associative therewith, to move said one drawer of each pair lof drawers of said plurality of pairs of drawers out of said housing when said one of said drawers are contained in said housing, and another of said dog means connecting each of said belt means extending from each of said belt means to releasably engage said rea-r ends of said other of said drawers of said pair of drawers to move each said other drawers into said housing when said other drawers are out of said housing:

switch means for operating said electric motor means in one direction; and

a second switch means for operating said electric motor means in the opposite direction.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 194,415 8/1877 Grippen 312-204 1,778,857 lO/1930 James 109-47 2,873,159 2/1959 Becker B12-223 FOREIGN PATENTS 871,898 7/1961 Great Britain.

CLAUDE A. LE ROY, Primary Examiner.

CHANCELLOR E. HARRIS, Examiner. 

1. A MONEY DEPOSITORY STATION COMPRISING: A COUNTER HOUSING HAVING A FRONT FACIA WALL AND A REAR WALL, SAID FACIA WALL PROVIDED WITH AN OPENING THEREIN; A PAIR OF DRAWERS SUPPORTED IN SAID COUNTER HOUSING VERTICALLY ALIGNED IN STACK RELATION, EACH OF SAID DRAWERS BEING MANUALLY SHIFTABLE HORIZONTALLY IN AND OUT OF SAID HOUSING THROUGH SAID OPENING IN SAID FRONT FACIA WALL, INDEPENDENTLY OF EACH OTHER; SAID DRAWERS HAVING A FRONT FACIA END AND A REAR END; A PULLEY DEVICE SUPPORTED IN SAID COUNTER HOUSING, SAID PULLEY DEVICE COMPRISING SPACED PULLEYS, AND BELT MEANS ENCIRCLING SAID PULLEYS FOR TRANSLATING UNIDIRECTIONAL ROTARY MOTION OF SAID PULLEYS TO SIMULTANEOUS, OPPOSITELY DIRECTED, LINEAL MOTION, AND DOG MEANS CONNECTING SAID BELT MEANS, ONE OF SAID DOG MEANS EXTENDING FROM SAID BELT MEANS TO ENGAGE SAID REAR END OF ONE OF SAID DRAWERS TO MOVE SAID ONE DRAWER OUT OF SAID HOUSING WHEN SAID DRAWER IS CONTAINED IN SAID HOUSING, AND ANOTHER OF SAID DOG MEANS EXTENDING FROM SAID BELT MEANS TO ENGAGE THE REAR END OF THE OTHER OF SAID DRAWERS TO SIMULTANEOUSLY MOVE SAID OTHER DRAWER INTO SAID HOUSING WHEN SAID OTHER DRAWER IS OUT OF SAID HOUSING; AN ELECTRIC MOTOR IN SAID HOUSING DRIVINGLY CONNECTING SAID PULLEY DEVICE; AND A SWITCH MEANS FOR OPERATING SAID ELECTRIC MOTOR. 